New York City sues Verizon for failing to connect a million with fibre
14 Mar 2017
Verizon is facing a lawsuit brought by the city of New York for failing to provide fibre internet to almost a million of its residents, thus breaching a contract signed in 2008.
Under the deal, the carrier had agreed to provide high-speed Fios broadband available to every household in the city - estimated at some 3.1 million residences. It had however, made the service available to 2.2 million to households.
According to the lawsuit, which was first reported by The New York Times, the carrier had breached its original 2008 agreement. The dispute between the carrier and the city had been going on for over two years.
Mayor Bill de Blasio criticized the carrier in a statement released alongside the suit, saying that ''Verizon must face the consequences for breaking the trust of 8.5 million New Yorkers.''
Verizon, on its part stated that the mayor and his administration were misinterpreting an agreement made under his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, De Blasio's predecessor.
''The de Blasio administration is disingenuously attempting to rewrite the terms of an agreement made with its predecessor and is acting in its own political self-interests that are completely at odds with what's best for New Yorkers,'' Verizon said in a statement.
In June 2015 Bill De Blasio, counsel to mayor Maya Wiley and IT and telecommunications commissioner Anne Roest, announced an audit report that revealed that blocks in the city that had been shown as completed by Verizon, but had not installed the equipment and service. Also Verizon had failed to consistently document service requests.
The audit further pointed out that as many as 40,000 requests for service were pending, many for 12 months or longer.
According to Verizon, it already provided service to about 2.2 million city residents, and had proposed investing another $1 billion in fibre in New York City over the next four years. It had also committed to expanding Fios availability to another 1 million homes and thousands of small businesses.
